Quest for no-nonsense lightweight CMS

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  • mystic
    Member
    • Nov 2006
    • 59

    Quest for no-nonsense lightweight CMS

    I have the annoying habit of redesigning my websites, not too often, just once in a year or two. So far I have been writing the HTML code template on my own and copying the content over to the new design, manually.

    That I feel is a simple waste of time. So, I decided to look for a simple no nonsense lightweight CMS that supports templates so that I could enter my content once and change the template as many times as possible. Alas, I have yet to find anything like what I want. Do you guys have any suggestions?

    The features I am looking for are:

    - template support
    - static page support: I hardly have any dynamic content. A script that runs once to output static html files would do the job
    - no need for trackbacks, comments, rss or any other blog specific features
    - perl or php based, perl preferred
    - flat file based. Can also live with SQLite or MySQL db for content storage
    - lightweight. Won't get me thrown out of dathorn when I update the site

    The nearest I came to was blosxom but it is geared towards blogs. Another one is Wikka Wiki using the Wiki in a Vacuum changes but it is just too dynamic for my comfort.

    Any suggestions?
  • Frank Hagan
    Senior Member
    • Mar 2004
    • 724

    #2
    All of the ones I've tried are absolute junk. Way too much overhead. The only one I liked, due to its small size and robust capabilities, was SNews , that I found to be much better than any of the others primarily because one guy controls it completely (rather than the mess you see with things like the Nukes and others where committees build the code).

    SNews has a learning curve, so I went in favor of php files and CSS, pulling in structured content as necessary. This made the most sense because I am converting established sites. But I've found the technique works really well.

    While I'm no where near as proficient at it as I should be, I continue to improve. A List Apart had a great article about using PHP and CSS to create a roll-your-own CMS at http://www.alistapart.com/articles/phpcms/

    Comment

    • Buddha
      Senior Member
      • Mar 2004
      • 825

      #3
      I probably wouldn't say the CMS I tried are all junk but none seem suitable for shared servers. The caching systems, almost all of them have added over the years, help but they still are using PHP to service the request. While PHP is great, it's also serves half the traffic of static HTML (only a tenth if a DB connection is needed). That can be a problem for a site which already has significant traffic, switching from HTML to PHP should be done cautiously for an existing site.

      I've been using Perl for years to generate static content locally and FTP it to the server, I'm maintaining hundreds of pages this way. If you have any experience with a scripting language (Perl, Ruby, Python or even PHP) then this might work for you.
      "Whatcha mean I shouldn't be rude to my clients?! If you want polite then there will be a substantial fee increase." - Buddha

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      • ChrisTech
        Senior Member
        • Mar 2004
        • 530

        #4
        I'd love to find a nice, new, lightweight cms. Still usng e107 because Im basically too lazy to switch currently. Mainly for personal use to store files for download and an area for tech articles (like how i fixed that stupid error, on that damn server the other day) or such.
        Hosting at Dathorn since March 2003!

        My Interwebs speed on Charter Cable!

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        • mystic
          Member
          • Nov 2006
          • 59

          #5
          In a way good to know that I am not missing something obvious

          Buddha, are the Perl codes you mentioned released under some OSI license or is it something that you just use internally?

          Something I came across that works similarly is OS Reviews CMS. It takes LaTeX formatted text as input and outputs static HTML (with commenting functionality). Looks interesting!

          If nothing else, I guess I will wait till MovableType Open Source comes out of beta and hack on it.

          Comment

          • J-G
            Member
            • May 2004
            • 54

            #6
            Hmmm...

            I have tried only a few CMS's. PHPwebsite was OK, but after that initial PLUNGE into CMS's, I'll probably stick with etomite. It is based on PHP w/ MySQL db, but it has a way to convert all pages to static html. I may hafta undertake 'statification' for one site I maintain, because it's not hosted here (EGADS!), which means its MySQL db is unavailable on that nightmare shared server at least once per week. If you "speak" CSS, u can go wild with templates on that thing, like our fellow daThornian (and my fellow HOOSIER), cathode. I'm just using the "free" templates that etomite comes with at hoysports.org and stjohnbosco.org .
            ¡¡¡ Jess G. ¡¡¡

            Comment

            • Buddha
              Senior Member
              • Mar 2004
              • 825

              #7
              Originally posted by mystic
              Buddha, are the Perl codes you mentioned released under some OSI license or is it something that you just use internally?
              The Perl code is just something I throw together which has grow over the years. There's no documentation and without any documentation I wouldn't be releasing it. Here a nice documented Perl solution though:

              "Whatcha mean I shouldn't be rude to my clients?! If you want polite then there will be a substantial fee increase." - Buddha

              Comment

              • crunch42
                Member
                • Feb 2005
                • 43

                #8
                I use WordPress for practically all my new sites. It has a lot of features I don't use, but I like how easy it is to integrate its code with my custom visual designs. I rarely use it for blogs but more often for its CMS functionality. It's really easy for clients to use, which is another huge plus.

                But if you want a CMS that's really basic without any features that you won't use then you'll probably have to write something yourself.

                But what Buddha said is important -- if your site is high traffic, stick with static HTML or get/make a CMS that generates static HTML pages.

                Comment

                • Sogas
                  Junior Member
                  • Jul 2004
                  • 8

                  #9
                  You might want to take a look at Modx CMS www.modxcms.com. I found it extremly easy to get up and running and to customize. Unfortunately, It has been a while since I did a base install but I am thinking it was pretty clean out of the box.

                  Good luck in your search,

                  Andy

                  Comment

                  • mrscommunication
                    Junior Member
                    • Sep 2007
                    • 1

                    #10
                    2nd MODx

                    I agree with Sogas, and recommend that you check out MODx CMS. It is pretty awesome! I'm at the point that setting up a new site in this CMS takes me less than an hour (if I already have css/xhtml code handy). The following url will point you to a one-page overview that has links to free MODx templates, examples of sites powered by MODx, and reviews comparing MODx to Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal and Expression Engine.

                    Comment

                    • ZYV
                      Senior Member
                      • Sep 2005
                      • 315

                      #11
                      AFAIK it still does not support multilingual websites and is VERY ressource intensive though. I wouldn't call that lightweight.

                      Comment

                      • paradiselost
                        Member
                        • Apr 2004
                        • 31

                        #12
                        Originally posted by mrscommunication
                        I agree with Sogas, and recommend that you check out MODx CMS.
                        http://www.squidoo.com/modxcms
                        I'm going to go with Sogas and mrscommunication and say that MODx is a really good CMS. It's in PHP and it's not for people who don't know anything about php or don't want to look at code. But if you are web developer who has been in the game for awhile then MODx can be a breath of fresh air. I was for me

                        Plus, MODx installs on Dathorn really well. I've installed on other servers and have had permissions problems after install (mostly in Plesk environments), but not on Dathorn.

                        James
                        --
                        ** DEVTRENCH **
                        --
                        James Ehly

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                        • xoro
                          Junior Member
                          • Nov 2004
                          • 11

                          #13
                          Radiant CMS

                          I mentioned this in another thread before I saw this one, but I'll throw it in just for the sake of completeness--although it's not something we can use here, not *yet*.

                          Here is a CMS that claims to be ". . . a no-fluff, open source content management system designed for small teams.":

                          Radiant CMS


                          This CMS is based on the Ruby on Rails framework (it powers http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/, btw).

                          They have an online demo:


                          Here you'll find a list that has some of its users:

                          Comment

                          • cathode
                            Member
                            • Oct 2004
                            • 88

                            #14
                            I also agree to recommend MODx or beter yet- it's parent CMS, Etomite. They are very very similar and they both work nicely on Dathorn - but having used both I have found Etomite to render faster and easier to use. You can't go wrong either way though.

                            Review of Etomite.

                            Comment

                            • timg
                              Member
                              • Feb 2005
                              • 84

                              #15
                              I did the browser quest a couple of years ago, and in terms of being intuitive, easy to use, and not overloaded, Website Baker (http://www.websitebaker.org) won that context hands-down.

                              It's PHP-based, but when it comes to PHP, I'm a copy-and-paster, and other than the odd obvious brain cramp, I haven't had any real difficulties developing templates for it. I've now used it on probably 10 sites.

                              However, it isn't flat file based. I use MySQL with it... but I do it the easy way: I just use the automated setup in cPanel.
                              ~ Tim Gallant ~ http://www.pactumweb.com

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